"DiBiase wasn’t involved in the creation of the Intercontinental Title directly. At the time Vince McMahon Sr. brought Ted in, there were two belts. McMahon Sr. created a new title and put it on Ted, the North American title. However, he then found out that the belt Bill Watts used in Mid-South was named the same. The title’s name was then changed, and when Pat Patterson came in they used Ted to drop the N.A. title. All these years that they say Patterson was the first IC champ, truth is, it was Ted."

<b>TJ/Kiseki, The Netherlands
<br>Watching wrestling since 1987
<br>Online since 1995</b>

1) Both Vince and LeRoy McGuirk (who controlled the North American title for many years before Watts) were NWA members and attended it's meetings together. So I find it hard to believe that Vince was unaware that they had their own North American title first.

Furthermore, even if he wasn't aware, or just became aware, I don't see how that would affect him any any way, shape or form to get rid of his own North American title. McGuirk and Watts's territory was Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Vince's territory was the Northeast. Two completely different regions of the country. It's not like there was any crossover.

Likewise, it's also ridiculous to even think that when you take into account that there were several different "World tag team champions" and "U.S. heavyweight champions" recognized in various territories around the country all at the same time. I'm pretty positive Jimmy Crockett or George Scott never said "Hey, did you know Ed Farhat's got his own U.S. title up in Detroit and Roy Shire also has his own way over on the West Coast? Maybe it's not such a good idea for us to have our own U.S. title here in the Mid-Atlantic, even though we're in a completely different part of the country and the majority of our fans are probably not even aware that either of these other promotions exist."

2) How was the North American title "renamed" the Intercontinental title when Patterson lost the NA title to Seiji Sakaguchi even after he officailly became the first IC champ?

Pat Patterson was awarded the IC title in september of 1979, or won it in a tournament in Brazil (if you believe the McMahons) but he lost the NA title to Sakaguchi on November 8, 1979 in Otaru, Japan.

But wait in a additional screwed up twist to this story, Sakaguchi held the NWF NA title from January 26, 1979 when he beat Johnny Powers to September 21, 1979 when he lost that title to Tiger Jeet Singh. Since both of these wrestlers wrestled mainly for New Japan, New Japan had two North American Heavyweight Champions wrestling for them and defending their titles on the same promotion. Plus the two titles were abandoned within two months of each other.